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CU Buffs run to PAC-12 championship on the backs of MacIntyre’s first recruits #Buffs

It’s been a magical season for the University of Colorado Buffaloes

Here’s how it started. With a group of recruits secured by Mike MacIntyre in just his first weeks as coach. Neil Woelk had some of the story back in August:

Every recruiting class for every head coach is special. Every class means a group of young men who have decided to cast their lot with that head coach and his staff, a decision that will have a tremendous impact not only on the ensuing four years, but for the rest of their lives.

When the Colorado Buffaloes challenge for their first PAC-12 title, there will be a group of seniors who will represent Mike MacIntyre‘s first recruiting class in Boulder — and that group, MacIntyre admits, will always have a special place in his heart.

They are the Buffs who chose to come to Colorado when the program had just completed one of the roughest stretches in its proud history — and all MacIntyre could promise them was an opportunity to be part of a resurgence. MacIntyre had little time. Hired in mid-December 2012, he had mere weeks to talk to players who had committed to the previous staff, as well as add to that group. It was, he admits, a whirlwind experience.

University of Colorado head coach Mike MacIntyre has been named the Walter Camp 2016 Coach of the Year, the Walter Camp Foundation (WCF) announced Thursday.

MacIntyre joins Bill McCartney (1989) as the only coaches in Colorado history to be named the National Coach of the Year. “It is an honor to receive the Walter Camp Coach of the Year award, but this all reflects on our assistant coaches and our players and how they’ve invested in our program for us to be able to be successful,” MacIntyre said Thursday as the team prepares to head off to Santa Clara, Calif., for Friday’s Pac-12 Championship game against No. 4 Washington (7 p.m. MT/FOX).

But what he produced is a class that will have as many as 11 starters, along with a half-dozen other key contributors. It is, he believes, a group that has established a foundation upon which success at Colorado will be built. “It makes it a little more special because we just did is so fast,” MacIntyre said. “But what’s also special is that they believed in me and what I was telling them, and what our staff was telling them. There wasn’t much to go on. There weren’t any facilities, there was a lot of negativity around the program from every angle — and they still believed in what we were telling them. They wanted to come and be a part of CU and do something special.”

Of the 23 players in that class, 19 are still with the program — an excellent percentage of retention, especially given the circumstances.

“I think it shows their love for the University of Colorado to stay here and stick it out,” MacIntyre said. “They’ve never once wavered from the belief that they can accomplish great things.”

Many of the members of that first class redshirted, and are just juniors this season. But the seniors from that class — defensive back Chidobe Awuzie, linebacker Jimmie Gilbert, quarterback Sefo Liufau, linebacker Kenneth Olugbode, safety Tedric Thompson and linebacker Ryan Severson — are all in line to be key contributors this fall.

“We came here expecting to change everything,” Awuzie, a preseason second-team all-Pac-12 pick and a player many expect to have his named called next April in the NFL Draft. “That’s the motive behind it. We saw a program that had been great at one time. They’d had a couple down years, but we wanted to take it back to the level of being great. We came here trying to build a legacy.”

It hasn’t been an easy road. In their three years here, members of that 2013 recruiting class have experienced just 10 wins.But after that initial season, when they were on the short end of too many long afternoons in Pac-12 play, they’ve closed the competitive gap, all the way to winning the PAC-12 South.

“The class I came in with, we kind of brought it upon ourselves for this final year to go out there and leave a lasting legacy, a foundation to be built upon,” said Liufau. “We understand how good we can be. In the past couple of years, it’s been about trying to compete with the upper-echelon teams. … But now, we want to be remembered as a team that helped restart a program that used to be one of the top teams in the country. We want to be remembered for winning a championship.”

“We know we have to prove it,” Awuzie said. “But this group is special. A lot of us have developed a strong bond. We’ve been through the same stuff, we’ve learned our trade together. If you look at all the people who stayed, it’s because we all believe. We’ve all bought in and we truly believe that something special is coming in our last year.”

Along with the six seniors from that first class, there are a number of other players who will be playing major roles this season. The list includes running backs Phillip Lindsay and Michael Adkins, offensive linemen Sam Kronshage, John Lisella and Jonathan Huckins, kicker Diego Gonzalez, linebacker Addison Gillam, defensive lineman Timothy Coleman Jr., wide receivers Devin Ross and Bryce Bobo, fullback George Frazier and quarterback Jordan Gehrke.

Combined with the seniors on this year’s team who are holdovers from the previous regime, it means one of the most experienced CU squads in recent years.

It also means a group that is hungry to turn the tide.

“This group of seniors, we’ve been through a lot,” Liufau said. “We’ve been through the 40-point beatdowns and we’ve been through the close games. Now we feel like it’s our time to go out there and win and show the country that we’re a great team. We want to go out there and win and put this program back on a pedestal, back on top, where it was when they won a national championship.”

MacIntyre, of course, would like nothing better — but not just for his sake. He’s watched his first CU recruiting class grow up. He’s seen them mature, on and off the field.

Now, he would love to see them reap the rewards of their hard work and perseverance.

“I’m looking forward to seeing them have success because they’ve put in so much hard work and time,” MacIntyre said. “They wanted to come and be a part of CU and do something special, and they’ve done it the right way. It shows their love for the University of Colorado, being willing to stay here and stick it out.